dear pacific day, won't you take me away?
by paradises
Summary: the pain will leave you paralyzed :: "—And, sometimes, she wonders what would have happened if she had met Ezra first." / for Epic, PLLC


**a/n: For the PLLC Forum, with the prompts; **divine, cascading, midnight and the song "Leave It All Behind" — Allie Moss. This is also my first Pretty Little Liars fic, and it's for Epic (EpiCat)! Hope that you like this, :)

**dear pacific day, won't you take me away?**  
EzraSpencer

/

The first time that they meet is in the midst of a sticky summer morning, in which trimmed lawns turn slightly parched in the heat of Rosewood, lavish sprinkler systems and adornments of figurines are scattered in a specific pattern across the lawns of the wealthier folk, each turning each other's garden against one another in an effort to compete against one another, to see who can be the best of the best.

No wonder, Spencer thinks to herself, she acts like this, in this extremely competitive manner — it's just a Hastings' thing to do. She brushes back her brown curls into a tight bun, mentally examining herself as she tilts from side to side in the lengthy mirror, from Ali's viewpoint, about what criticism she would give on Spencer's extremely professional looking blazer outfit, complete with the early admission Princeton ticket.

If Ali was alive, she reminds herself, which she isn't; and instead remembers what Ali would have said; something about remembering that Spencer didn't have anything _up there _to show off, or that she looked as though she was raiding her mother's closet. Then, when Spencer would get slightly defensive, because she always would, Ali would remind her about how lucky she was to have a friend like Ali who would never _ever _lie to her. Sometimes, Spencer could believe it.

Not usually, though; she brushes the thoughts of a dead girl, a dead girl who could possibly be alive, who is most probably alive, but then why hasn't she come home to Rosewood, why did Spencer go to multiple funerals for her, why did everybody have to go through the pain, the longing;

It wasn't worth it, Spencer decides, and tries to forget about all the thoughts of A, instead moving her mind onto something more important, like the fact that today was her last examination before she would have enough college credits to graduate and embark on a new journey, a Hastings' journey, to Princeton, and then perhaps from there be able to get into a successful law school program.

She had been too distracted with the mentions of A, the fact that one of her friends was always in the hospital, the mentions of dead blond girls who looked remarkably similar to Ali — _just a little too similar; _and everything else that life has to serve as a nuisance of a distraction.

Walking outside of the closed doors, and walking into Hollis College only what seems like minutes later; she loses her time with the divine melody filling through her head and the memories keep on flooding back (_tick tock, goes the clock_). They merely brush by, Spencer running through the crowds and they bump into each other, just for a moment, before she runs past, never wanting to be late, even back then.

/

She has to let him go, at one point or another.

Spencer finds herself pushing him against the wall at midnight, but this relationship or whatever they have between them, it really has no meaning — she's just holding on to him before she ends up free falling, cascading in a sense, nearly pushed off the edge of the cliff and about to turn the tables. Her rejection to the University of Pennyslvania comes with the thought of disaster, her whole life building up to the point of nothingness. Princeton had come, but nothing would ever be the same.

She tells her friends, with their disasters evident upon small faces, a neat row of pointed bones and weak frames, that she'll catch up with them later, maybe meet them for lunch in the courtyard; and then when the lights are off, and they're just alone, she can almost let herself believe that everything will be okay.

/

Aria finds out about the truth, around a month later — a series of texts from A, about which of your friends you can truly trust, apparently; and Spencer knows who A is, she knows every little thing about what's happening but she's pretended so well but every series of lies must have an end. Tears had fallen down her face, and he had promised, Ezra had promised that he wouldn't say a word; she hadn't told her parents, she hadn't told her friends, but the truth had gotten out somehow, and before;

There were troubles, but she had her friends, the people that she could rely on more than anybody in the world. Now, they were gone, too.

And, sometimes, she wonders what would have happened if she had met Ezra first.


End file.
